Monday, October 13, 2008

Saturday morning at the soccer field, one of the other soccer moms was relating their trip to the ER the previous evening. It seems that during an afternoon of fishing on Fall Break, her eleven year old son stepped on a fishing hook that was in the bottom of the fishing boat. Dang – I know that smarted!

But it reminded me of a particularly good tale, one from long ago.

Katie was our first Sheltie, way before Shelley, and she lived up to every peculiarity that Shelties and herding dogs are known to have. She barked incessantly, she twirled, nipped, spun and was obsessive about Frisbees, un-stuffing stuffed animals and fetching most any object that you introduced to her.

Katie was the first dog we had our own and was before we had kids…so we spent a lot of time playing with her. During those days Danny was in his Fishing Hobby Mode and one of the games that he created was to attach a sock to the end of a fishing rod and he would cast and “retrieve” the dog. It killed two birds with one stone in his eyes, I guess, he practiced his casting, and he didn’t have to keep...on…throwing…the…ball. Katie LOVED this game. She would sit and cry longingly at “her” rod until we would either play the game or hide the rod.

One Memorial Day weekend, we had yet again camped in the pouring rain (one of our last camping attempts I believe), and had just gotten home and unloaded our stuff. I was upstairs and Danny was in the basement, probably alphabetizing his lures or spit-shining his boat; when I heard the blood-curdling yelps of the dog.

I went tearing down the basement stairs to find our precious Katie with a HUGE fishing lure – a ZARA-SPOOK – embedded in her mouth. Katie had knocked down one of Danny’s rods, thinking it was hers and had chomped down on the lure (rather than her sock) and went running across the basement with it!

Danny was kneeling on the basement floor with Katie between his knees; I reached to grab MAH BABY Dog and when I did he screamed through clenched teeth “DO NOT TOUCH THE DOG!!!!!”

Katie had all the barbs of the treble hook on the Zara-Spook buried in her mouth, when Danny grabbed her and put her between his knees to try and pull it out…she slung her head and buried the back hook, with all of its trebles, completely INTO HIS THIGH. DANNY AND THE DOG WERE HOOKED TOGETHER. Panic immediately ensued…

I wanted to take them to the emergency room. But this posed a number of questions. First and foremost, how was Danny going to walk with a dog attached to his thigh by its mouth? In their current configuration – how would they ride in the car? Once there, would they allow the dog in, would they put them on a stretcher together, or a wheelchair? Perhaps emergency personnel would come out to the car (after that quit laughing) and numb Danny’s thigh and remove his hook so we could get to a vet.

Maybe would should go to a vet first. But it’s Memorial Day and all of the offices are closed. What to do, what to do. Let me tell you internets, it was some dilemma.

What seemed like an eternity passed. We SCREAMED at each other, A LOT. Many unsavory words were heard and exchanged. Danny was extreme pain at this point because Katie kept JERKING her head, and lo and behold, the dog RIPPED the hook out of Danny’s thigh!

Whew, that part of the problem was solved!

Now that Danny and the dog are were no longer Siamese twins we could see that the hooks were actually just piercing her upper lip and not embedded in the roof of her mouth as we feared. I held her down and Danny was able to cut the barbs off and we were home free!